Exclusive: Spoon reveal details of new album, due in MaySource: Pitchfork Media

We've finally got the scoop, baby-- Spoon's fifth long player, now-finally-entitled Gimme Fiction , is complete and set to be released May 10 via Merge Records, the band's home since 2000's Loveways EP. And we don't want to blow our cred and sound like fanboys (and girls) or anything here, but we're pretty fucking excited. Yeah, like Who's The Boss on DVD excited. Star Jones at a seafood buffet excited. Sexually excited. And so should you be: Spoon have been rockin' hips consistently since the mid-90s, when Telephono sprang fully-formed from Texas' sole indie hotness hotbed, Austin. Then Britt Daniel and the boys went big time with their second album, got screwed by their record company, wrote a couple songs about it, and eventually ended up on Merge, which really is probably for the best, as it led to 2003's Kill The Moonlight, the band's so-far masterpiece.But, you know, it's going on three years since Moonlight dropped, and unlike that record, which was released a year after 2001's Girls Can Tell and felt relaxed and maybe even a bit rushed, the band has laboured over Gimme Fiction, with little to no word on the proceedings. Aside from periodically released demos or videos taken from sessions, there was little to tide over the band's rabid fans. But with Merge issuing the new record soon, we're left with a tidy couple of months to repress our big boy crush on Daniel and sharpen our ears for what'll hopefully be a corker. Oh, and we also have a tracklist:

01 The Beast and Dragon, Adored02 The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine 03 I Turn My Camera On 04 My Mathematical Mind 05 The Delicate Place 06 Sister Jack 07 I Summon You 08 The Infinite Pet 09 Was It You? 10 They Never Got You 11 Merchants of Soul

You may have noticed the band's name in our Coachella report yesterday, cleverly hidden among the Coldplays, NINs (our backwards "N" is at the cleaners), and Bright Eyeses. That, so far, is the only performance Spoon has announced for 2005, but we think you know that we know that you know that they know that that won't be it. Follow?

I listened to it once through, nothing really blew me away. All of them were passable, nothing I hated. Near the end of the album, it got interesting in a few places, namely Was It You? and parts of Merchants Of Soul They Never Got You. But nothing really unique. What'd you like, what'd I miss?

you missed their last two excellent albums Girls Can Tell and 2002's minimalist masterpiece Kill The Moonlight. try tracking those down. i'm just now hearing this new one today, but it grows with each listen, i've heard it through about 3 times now. theyre a pretty awesome band and i've found that most of my favorite bands/artists today, none of them 'blew me away' on first listen. for me, some of the most interesting music takes many listens to absorb, because you keep finding new things. wilco and arcade fire would be two examples of this. i think spoon are fairly accessible though and very catchy. so just keep putting it on and i imagine it will grow.

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

I listened to it again, and you're right, it does grow on you. Very nice. What was really pleasant, though, was digging up The Way We Get By from one of their old albums and realizing that, yeah, I've heard it somewhere else before, really liked it, and had no idea where I heard it. So yeah, where did I hear it? Haha. Maybe it was Conan?

Anyway, revisiting, I really like I Turn My Camera On and My Mathematical Mind. Nothing transcendental (My Mathematical Mind gets close; it's borderline epic), but everything does get better with each listen. And check that, Merchants Of Soul is really nice too. Love the piano from the get-go, and the violins. The staticky distortion heard in the guitars in some of these songs is probably the most unique thing about these guys. Maybe it's just me.

just a reminder: SPOON- GIMME FICTION, my favorite album (so far) of 2005 comes out tomorrow! anyone tired of their music and looking for something catchy and awesome should give it a shot. to give anyone an idea of what i like, my top albums of the year are so far....

seriously its awesome. they're the next david garza. if anyone listens to it or buys it, write in this thread. i've heard this album like a million times and it might be my favorite of theirs, i think.

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye